Mike Morrice

[Mental Health and Addictions, October 28th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am back tonight to continue to raise the alarm on the impacts of the poisoned drug crisis on my community and, specifically tonight, on the federal funds that are needed to act. The reality is that, in my community, this crisis continues to have devastating impacts. This year alone, there were 72 more deaths from poisoned drugs. In fact, just in the period from October 11 to October 21, earlier this month, there were five more suspected poisoned drug deaths, each one a loved member of my community, such as Alby, who I spoke about in the House recently, or my friend Hudeyfa, who passed away earlier this year. Every single one was a preventable death.

In the midst of this crisis, the federal government has a program specifically for prevention, harm reduction and treatment initiatives. It is called the substance use and addictions program, or SUAP for short. It is a $359-million program. There is good news for the government: We have two experienced, credible organizations who applied for this very fund from Waterloo region, Sanguen and Community Healthcaring.

Sanguen has even been funded by SUAP before. I was thrilled to join the then minister of mental health and addictions, our former colleague Carolyn Bennett, alongside my colleague from Kitchener—Conestoga last year, to announce a previous extension of SUAP funding for Sanguen's community health van, yet this year, for both applications from Waterloo region, neither one was successful, meaning that zero SUAP dollars are going to Waterloo region.

Even if we received just the average across the country, in recent years program funding varied between $104 million to $145 million a year. If we were to average that out across the five ridings across Waterloo region, it would mean between $1.5 million to $2 million.

This is at a time when we need more of everything in the face of this poisoned drug crisis: more treatment, more mental health supports, more safe consumption sites, more safer supply and more harm reduction. Instead, both provincially and now federally as well, our community is actually getting less. This is why I met with the minister and her team when we began to hear news of these funding decisions back in July.

The best they can do is talk about a new fund being set up that non-profits and charities in my community, and others across the country, will not even be eligible for, with a hope that more money might get announced in the future. That means that organizations such as Sanguen and Community Healthcaring are going to have to begin to wind down programs by March 31 of next year if nothing more is done, at a time when we need them doing more.

The other reality, though, is that, beyond those two organizations, what we need is SUAP money, not words of aspiration, to be delivered to communities like mine.

Will the minister commit to reviewing these SUAP decisions to ensure that hot spots such as Waterloo region are not overlooked?

[Privilege, October 28th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, as I have shared many times throughout the day and in recent days, Greens supported the original opposition motion from the Conservatives to look into the mismanagement of SDTC, back in June. We support the terms of this motion as well.

The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle just finished sharing with the member from the Bloc Québécois that this is actually on the government side, that the Liberals are the ones continuing this debate.

I wonder if the member would test that theory. If only another Conservative would not get up after the member spoke, what might happen next? Can he tell us, if another Conservative did not speak after him, what would happen next?

[Privilege, October 28th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, as I shared earlier, since June, Greens have supported this motion's moving forward so that we can look into the mismanagement of funds by SDTC. Of course, we support the motion as well. As I also shared earlier, we have had some 90-odd Conservatives speaking to the motion now. They have spoken for almost 50 hours. They have spent over $3.3 million of House time speaking to it. There are opportunities for around 20 or so left.

Could the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge comment on how many more Conservatives will speak to the same motion, spending more money to do so?

[Petitions, October 28th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, my second petition notes that we are in both a climate and an affordability crisis, and that this crisis is exacerbated by oil and gas companies that are gouging Canadians at the pumps and making record-breaking profits.

The petitioners note that the five largest oil and gas companies in Canada alone made $38 billion in 2022. They did it by gouging Canadians. They increased their profits by 18¢ a litre, from 26¢ a litre to around 42¢ a litre. They note that some folks talk a lot about the carbon tax. That went up around two cents a litre, while these profits went up 18¢ a litre. They also note that other countries around the world have put in place a windfall profit tax on the profits of oil and gas industries, where this has happened in other places around the world.

The petitioners have two very reasonable calls to action. They call on the Government of Canada to immediately put in place a 15% windfall profit tax on these excess profits and to reallocate the revenues generated toward programs that would make life more affordable for folks across the country, for example, by investing in improved service and more reliable public transit, and by investing in helping Canadians retrofit their homes.

[Petitions, October 28th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I rise to present two petitions. The first is on behalf of folks who recognize that artists and creatives in the arts community do immeasurable good across the country, whether it is related to mental health or lifting up the voices of activists. Petitioners point out the economic impact of artists across the country, as they contribute $54.8 billion to Canada's GDP. However, the petitioners also note that public data shows communities across the country are underfunded, including communities like mine. They note that the regional development agencies model has proven successful. This model has organizations, like FedDev Ontario, ensuring that funding for economic development is more equitably distributed across the country.

Petitioners call for three actions from the Government of Canada: first, to restore funding of the Canada Council for the Arts to its pandemic level of $500 million annually; second, to amend the underlying legislation for the Canada Council for the Arts to require that the regional development agencies model be applied, to ensure communities are more equitably funded across the country; and third, to meaningfully consult with historically underfunded communities to ensure that this funding is directed toward under-represented and equity-deserving groups.

[Privilege, October 28th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, as I have shared before when rising for this motion previously, the Greens supported the original motion back in June calling for documents with respect to the mismanagement of SDTC. We support this motion as well so it can go to committee to be investigated. What we do not support is continuing to use House time and resources to day after day speak about the exact same motion.

I have an update for members in case they might be curious. It is the third time I have risen on this point. We have updated numbers on how much money has been spent by the Conservatives on debating this motion. We have now had 96 Conservative members speak to it, which is about 48 hours if we only account for the Conservative speeches. That adds up to over $3.3 million spent continuing to speak to a motion we could vote on if the Conservatives would just stop speaking to it.

Here is my question for the reasonable member for Essex: At what point will he call out the need to stop using House resources and bring this to a vote?

[The Healing of the Seven Generations, October 23rd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, while indigenous people account for just 5% of the population, around half of those incarcerated in federal women's prisons are indigenous.

My community is no exception. At Grand Valley Institution, the percentage of indigenous incarcerated folks has even increased by 10% since 2020. It is what makes the work of incredible organizations centring reconciliation in their justice system all the more vital. The Healing of the Seven Generations' bail release supervision program helps folks break generational trauma and prevent recidivism as well as community justice initiatives. Its stride program helps incarcerated folks heal and build the community connections that help them to be successful after release.

My deep thanks to Donna, Kate and their entire teams for the impact they are having.

[Housing, October 22nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, first of all, the parliamentary secretary makes important points, and I hope I made clear in my speech that it is not that the government is doing nothing. In fact it has increased funding to reduce homelessness across the country. The reality right now is this: The result is that over the last number of years, the number of folks living unsheltered has tripled. Therefore the results in my community mean that more folks are hurting and are living on the streets, and we have not seen the results of the funding.

My question to the member remains this: Does he recognize the reality that in Waterloo region, the number of folks living unsheltered has tripled, and will he advocate to step up the funds that have been put on the table to ensure that we get to a point where we achieve the goal we both want, which is to at least cut homelessness in half over the coming years?

[Housing, October 22nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, as I was saying, we more than tripled the number of folks living unsheltered in just those three years. There is another point-and-count study happening right now, and folks, support workers across Waterloo Region, expect that number to be significantly higher, as do I.

How did it get so bad? We need to be talking about that in this place, so we can focus on real solutions. One reason it has become so bad is that, over the last number of decades, governments of multiple parties have dramatically cut funding for more affordable housing to be built.

In fact, it was as of 1995 that the funding was cut significantly. This has led to the point where, in Ontario, 93% of all affordable homes were built before 1995. It also means that, across the country, our stock of social housing is now at the bottom of the G7, at around 3.5%. Not only have we stopped building the affordable housing we need, but governments have also allowed for the erosion of the existing supply of affordable housing.

Research from the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative shows that, in my community, for every one new unit of affordable housing getting built, we are losing 39. Worse still, we are seeing the financialization of housing as housing is being commodified. We are seeing more and more large corporate landlords buying up and profiteering from homes that used to be affordable, raising rents and evicting folks. Of course, we also have governments that are not investing enough to prevent and reduce homelessness.

This is something that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has looked at very specifically, giving numbers for parliamentarians to consider. To get just a 50% reduction in chronic homelessness across the country, we need to see the federal government increase its funding to seven times what it currently is. The PBO estimates that this would require an additional $3.5 billion a year.

The good news is that we can afford this. We can look to other programs the government currently funds. We can look at subsidies to the oil and gas industry, for example. There is $18 billion there. We can look at the Trans Mountain pipeline; there is $34 billion more there. We can look at the military, which is $26 billion and going up to $50 billion. All we need here is just $3.5 billion for unsheltered folks. We can look to move dollars to those who need it the most.

My question tonight is this: Will the government do better by those living unsheltered and commit the funds we need to close this gap?

[Housing, October 22nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am back tonight to continue to advocate for solutions on one of the issues that is most pressing in my community, and that is continued rising homelessness.

Now, how bad are things right now? Back in 2018, we had just over 300 people living unsheltered across Waterloo region. That point-and-count study was repeated in 2021. The number more than tripled—